The one thing I find even worse than the troll's posts themselves are Anonymonk flames like this that always pop up on his threads in significant concentration.

I considered the two nodes here for deletion (as I would have the root node, had arunbear not beaten me to it), and they got a bunch of keep votes and have positive noderep as we speak. To be fair, the ratio of delete to keep votes is 2:1, but that still means that quite a few people delight in these posts.

I considered the two nodes here for deletion (as I would have the root node, had arunbear not beaten me to it), and they got a bunch of keep votes and have positive noderep as we speak. To be fair, the ratio of delete to keep votes is 2:1, but that still means that quite a few people delight in these posts.

Delight? Not necessarily.

I voted "keep" on all of those nodes (as well as the others that have recently been considered "delete, troll" or "delete, flame") - not because I'm tittilated by shallow controversy and petty flamage, but because I think that's a pretty poor reason to remove content. The only nodes I vote to delete are true, word-for-word duplicates; otherwise, I don't like the idea of removing content from the Monastery, whether we like it or not.

I guess I like to think that not sweeping our trolls and flamers under the carpet is the mature option, rather than making their nodes harder to read.

I voted "keep" on all of those nodes (as well as the others that have recently been considered "delete, troll" or "delete, flame") - not because I'm tittilated by shallow controversy and petty flamage, but because I think that's a pretty poor reason to remove content.

I guess it hinges on your definition of "content". By my reckoning, most troll nodes carry the same relevance and value as true, word-for-word duplicates.

Fair enough, though I'll disagree on whether flames and trolls have to be tolerated (insert quip about excercising free speech by yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre here).

I am not actually keen on deleting nodes. In fact I never delete anything on forums where I am a moderator. Unfortunately, threaded forums like PerlMonks can't really emulate what flat-threaded messageboards call "closing" a thread, which leaves it readable, but precludes any further replies.

I also voted to keep the original node. Personally, I find W to be insulting and immature; I tend to ignore most of his posts. However, Perlmonks is not meant to be limited to the mature poster. A wide variety of views and opinions are, imho, meant to be aired here. If W feels that s/he's getting the shaft, then it is not only his right to speak up, but his responsability. Do we really want a repeat of Abigail?

I do think that many of the responses to W have devolved from reacting-to-content into reacting-to-speaker. I forget which monk has it in his sig, but "Look not at who speaks, but instead look at what is said." It's an ideal, but one I think we should all strive to achieve.

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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Then there are Damian modules.... *sigh* ... that's not about being less-lazy -- that's about being on some really good drugs -- you know, there is no spoon. - flyingmoose

I shouldn't have to say this, but any code, unless otherwise stated, is untested

I don't know what kind of reasoning you employed to arrive at your conclusion, but to me it seems that flinging feces at a monkey is no effective way of stopping it from doing the same, and that the only motivation that adequately explains such a reaction is delight at flying feces.